H. Kars

The Cultural Landscape & Heritage Paradox. Protection and Development of the Dutch Archaeological-Historical Landscape and its European Dimension.

De grootste uitdaging vormen de vaak onzichtbare archeologisch-historische landschappen. Het gaat erom deze tijdig te herkennen teneinde ze te kunnen inpassen in de ruimtelijke ontwikkeling en hun betekenis voor de samenleving duidelijk te maken. Steeds vaker wordt onderkend dat dit evenveel te maken heeft met management van veranderingen als met behoud en verbeelding van het verleden. Dit stelt erfgoedbeheerders voor een paradox: om de cultuurhistorische omgevingswaarden te bewaren, moeten ze samenwerken met diegenen die ze willen veranderen. The Cultural Landscape and Heritage Paradox presenteert als aanpak van dit probleem een visie op de integratie van onderzoek, beleid en toepassing en onderbouwt deze met ‘best practices’ op nationaal en Europees niveau.To what extent can we know past and mainly invisible landscapes, and how we can use this still hidden knowledge for actual sustainable management of landscape’s cultural and historical values. It has also been acknowledged that heritage management is increasingly about ‘the management of future change rather than simply protection’. This presents us with a paradox: to preserve our historic environment, we have to collaborate with those who wish to transform it and, in order to apply our expert knowledge, we have to make it suitable for policy and society. The answer presented by the Protection and Development of the Dutch Archaeological-Historical Landscape programme (pdl/bbo) is an integrative landscape approach which applies inter- and transdisciplinarity, establishing links between archaeological-historical heritage and planning, and between research and policy. This is supported by two unifying concepts: ‘biography of landscape’ and ‘action research’. This approach focuses upon the interaction between knowledge, policy and an imagination centered on the public. The European perspective makes us aware of the resourcefulness of the diversity of landscapes, of social and institutional structures, of various sorts of problems, approaches and ways forward. In addition, two related issues stand out: the management of knowledge creation for landscape research and management, and the prospects for the near future. Underlying them is the imperative that we learn from the past ‘through landscape’.

Dynamics of Indian Ocean Slavery Revealed through Isotopic Data from the Colonial Era Cobern Street Burial Site, Cape Town, South Africa (1750-1827)

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) intended the Cape of Good Hope to be a refreshment stop for ships travelling between the Netherlands and its eastern colonies. The indigenous Khoisan, however, did not constitute an adequate workforce, therefore the VOC imported slaves from East Africa, Madagascar and Asia to expand the workforce. Cape Town became a cosmopolitan settlement with different categories of people, amongst them a non-European underclass that consisted of slaves, exiles, convicts and free-blacks. This study integrated new strontium isotope data with carbon and nitrogen isotope results from an 18th-19th century burial ground at Cobern Street, Cape Town, to identify non-European forced migrants to the Cape. The aim of the study was to elucidate individual mobility patterns, the age at which the forced migration took place and, if possible, geographical provenance. Using three proxies, 87Sr/86Sr, δ13Cdentine and the presence of dental modifications, a majority (54.5%) of the individuals were found to be born non-locally. In addition, the 87Sr/86Sr data suggested that the non-locally born men came from more diverse geographic origins than the migrant women. Possible provenances were suggested for two individuals. These results contribute to an improved understanding of the dynamics of slave trading in the Indian Ocean world.

Beyond isolation: understanding past human-population variability in the Dutch town of Oldenzaal through the origin of its inhabitants and its infrastructural connections

This study presents a first attempt to assess the mechanisms and potential controls behind past residential mobility through the integration of isotopic data from human inhumations and spatial infrastructural information pertaining to the settlement containing these inhumations. Strontium (87Sr/86Sr) and oxygen (δ18OPDB) isotope data are derived from 200 (post)medieval individuals from the town of Oldenzaal in the present-day Netherlands. Reconstructions of historical route networks show that Oldenzaal was well-connected interregionally throughout the Middle Ages and early-modern times (ca. AD 800–1600). Although the working hypothesis was that in the past a high degree of spatial connectivity of settlements must have been positively related to a highly variable geographical origin of its inhabitants, the isotopic data from Oldenzaal indicate a population characterized by a low variability in terms of their origin. This unexpected result may be caused by (a combination of) various factors, related to (1) biases in the isotopic dataset, (2) interpretative limitations regarding the results of isotopic analyses and (3) the impact of broader socio-cultural factors that cannot be traced through isotopic analyses, such as infrastructural connectivity, socio-economics and political factors. The human oxygen isotope dataset presented here provides a first step towards a δ18OPDB reference dataset, against which future samples can be compared without the need to convert the data. This paper establishes that although in archaeology a biomolecular approach potentially provides a detailed reconstruction of the development of past populations in terms of palaeodemography and geographical/cultural origin, such studies should be performed in a transdisciplinary context in order to increase the understanding of the wider controlling factors of past population change.

Between the Piles. Studying Excavation Photographs to Determine the Area of Physical Disturbance Caused by Piling in the Netherlands

Excavation photographs that show piles can be used to determine and measure the area of disturbance around piles. Until now, this has only been done at a small scale and with ideal examples. The present study shows that less ideal photographs can also be used to determine the disturbance around piles, at a much larger scale. Using predefined methods of documentation and registration, data can be collected about the disturbance of different types of piles, with varied piling techniques, in various burial environments and archaeological contexts. This data will be used in the second phase of the research to determine the loss of archaeological information due to piling.